Research report launched

Talking back: giving public context to media content

By: Sohail Rashid

ISLAMABAD: ‘Talking back: giving public context to media content’, a pilot study introducing media literacy through educational institutions launched here in a private hotel on Thursday.

The study was carried out by Uks, a research, resource and publication centre. Six universities of Pakistan had participated in the research including Quaid e Azam University Islamabad, Fatima Jinnah, University of Peshawar and federal university Karachi.

The findings of the study say that audience are satisfied with the awareness that media is disseminating about various problems. However, they are not satisfied with the way this information is packaged and presented to them. Audience emphasis that desire to break the news first needs to be tempered with a decision to check the facts first.

The research also suggests that there is a need to formulate a code of conduct after analyzing the focus group findings, in consensus with media practitioners and to integrate media literacy courses in universities curricula.

The study also stressed that talk shows and current affair programmes need to discuss topics that affect the every day life of a common man. Issues like the NRO, the Kerry-Lugar Bill and the lawyer’s movement are discussed in depth while food inflation and unemployment that are crippling the average Pakistani hardly feature as topic of discussion.

While speaking on the occasion, Anjum Riaz, project partner and a media practitioner said that people loves to watch the politicians attacking each other in talk shows and that our current affair programmes are more popular among the audience than any entertainment show. “It depicts that audience are not much literate to analyse the media content. There is a need of time to literate the audience regarding media content” she said.

Tasneem Ahmer, the project manager said that their motto is to highlight the audience aspect for media and to spread awarness among the audience about media so that they can analyse media content in a better way.